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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355111">The Alignment Assignment</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/squarepeg/pseuds/squarepeg'>squarepeg</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Astrology, Compatibility, Divination, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Harry Potter Thinks Draco Malfoy is Up to Something, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:20:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,463</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/squarepeg/pseuds/squarepeg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Trelawney is sick and tired of teaching so she instructs her classes to look inward for a month of astrological madness and matching mayhem. For some students, cough Harry cough, it is altogether more than they bargained for.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Alignment Assignment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi all! I'm feeling incredibly anxious about the election tomorrow in the US and I wrote this to cope with all of those emotions. I have a few thousand more words written already and I'm hoping to have this finished in five chapters or less. If you live in the US, please vote for Joe Biden tomorrow and carry that down the ticket with a vote for any and all candidates from your jurisdiction who will stand up for human rights  against all forms of racism, prejudice, and bigotry.</p><p>Anyways, divination is a mandatory class for the purposes of this story. Thanks for reading this lighthearted remix of HBP.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Professor Trelawney was feeling under the weather that week. Honestly it is too much to expect that a woman gifted with the unpredictable ability of foresight should be able to wrangle countless classrooms of teenagers day in and day out during dragon flu season. She was exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually exhausted. Which is why she was disregarding all of her predetermined syllabi and pivoting completely to focus on astrology until she was feeling better. Astrology was easy and allowed for the students to be very self-sufficient. In essence, it was the perfect excuse for her to nap herself back to health on her divan in the corner while the teenagers prattled and gossiped through whatever assignments she thought up. </p><p>	The sixth years were her first class of the day. Typically the group of Gryffindors and Slytherins were her most rambunctious and least productive class. It was especially hard to divine anything with them when Harry Potter was such an overwhelming presence in the group. If he hadn’t been nearly the entire reason she was gainfully employed, she’d have half a mind to kick him out of her classroom altogether. As it was, she was begrudgingly grateful to the doomed boy for gifting her a livelihood. </p><p>	“Alright students, settle in on your sofas and chairs now. Please take out your personal charts. We will be considering our own romantic futures for the next month. Someone is this class is your best astrological match and it is up to you to convince me that you’ve found them in no less than three feet of parchment.”</p><p>	“Three feet? She is mental,” Ron muttered across the love seat to Harry. His voice was far from the only one objecting in the room, though there were more than a few excited squeals overpowering the naysayers.</p><p>	“You may begin comparing those charts, children. By the end of the lesson, I expect you to have a list of five students who might potentially be your most suited match.”</p><p>	“Well,” Ron huffed with all the might of someone readily coming around to the idea of spending hours searching for his soul mate. “Might as well start with you, mate. What’s your sun sun again?”</p><p>	Harry looked at his best friend bemusedly, “I’m a Leo, I think.”</p><p>	“Not for me then, I’m afraid. Bet I’m looking for an Earth sign or another Water sign. Though,” Ron’s voice picked up here as he got more excited, “maybe our moons and planetary placements can overpower our mismatched suns!”</p><p>	“Er, Ron?”</p><p>	“Yeah?” Ron answered distractedly as his eyes darted between their two charts and he scribbled something caustically in his notes.</p><p>	“Why are we even wasting our time with our charts? We’re both blokes.” Harry stated matter of factly, but he couldn’t help but feel he’d been a bit profound. </p><p>	Ron’s head snapped up to attention and he regarded Harry with confusion. “What does that matter?”</p><p>	Harry hadn’t been expecting that frank response. His forehead creased as his eyebrows drew together as he frowned. “Er, because we’re boys? And boys like girls?”</p><p>	“Bloody hell. Sometimes I forget all about those muggles you lived with until you say something daft like that. There is no stigma about homosexuality in the wizarding world. We can have babies with anyone because of, you know, magic so it never much mattered who you married so long as you were in love.”</p><p>	Harry dropped his quill and stared at his friend with his mouth hanging ugly and open. He was absolutely baffled. “Do you like boys, Ron??”</p><p>	“No, not really. I mean, I don’t mind ’em. And if the right one came along, I wouldn’t turn him down. Charlie’s boyfriend is kind of cute, but I definitely like girls more. At least so far anyway. Yeah,” Ron nodded his head vigorously as if the aggressiveness of his assent would be enough to convince Harry that all of his preconceived notions about sexuality were misinformed. </p><p>	“Charlie’s boyfriend…” Harry whispered disbelievingly to himself. </p><p>	“You really thought all wizards like witches and all witches liked them back?” It was now Ron’s turned to look gobsmacked. Typical of most of Harry’s wizarding revelations, the tables turned quickly and left Ron without a shadow of a doubt that muggles would never cease to mystify him. </p><p>	“I guess I did. I never really thought about it that much.”</p><p>	Ron nodded at him and chewed feathered end of his quill thoughtfully. “Do you like blokes, Harry?”</p><p>	Harry spluttered indignantly, drawing himself up to his full height before answering magnanimously, “No.”</p><p>	Ron shrugged. “Alright, mate. You still need to check all their charts though. You could have one of those platonic matches Luna was blathering to you about last weekend.”</p><p>	Harry blinked blankly a few times before speaking again, “Wait a minute, I have to go through the charts of all of the girls and all of the boys to make my list? That’s…That’s double the work!” </p><p>	“Yeah, mate,” Ron laughed. “But if it makes you feel better, I think I’ve ruled us out as a perfect match. Our planets actually match up fairly well, but our houses are way off. It’d never work.” Ron seemed more than a little put out. “We can still be friends though.”</p><p>	“Oh thank God for that, I suppose,” Harry quipped. “Er, would you tell me why though? I’m pants at this astrology stuff.”</p><p>	Ron sighed heavily. “It’s easy, Harry. Look at the sun sign first, that’ll give you an easy indication whether you want to look harder into someone’s chart. Then look at their Venus and Mars placements. Venus is the love planet and Mars is the sex planet. If those match up, I reckon you’re golden.”</p><p>	“But what’s this house thing?”</p><p>	“Oh, well I did extra digging for us because I already love you and figured it’d be easy to write the whole assignment on the two of us, but our rising signs really screwed up our potential.”</p><p>	“What??”</p><p>	“You’re a Leo Rising, see?” Ron pointed to his ascendent on his chart.  “And I’m a Taurus rising. Basically that puts your sun in your first house and my sun in my eleventh house. It’d never work. Our values are too out of whack.”</p><p>	“What does that even mean??” Harry dropped his head into his hands, defeated. </p><p>	“This is pretty basic stuff, mate. Do they not have horoscopes in muggle papers?”</p><p>	“No, they do, but it’s all very vague and there’s no arithmetic involved. At least not for the person reading it.”</p><p>	Ron shrugged, “Our ascendents don’t match, mate. You should look for a Sagittarius, Aries or Aquarius ascendent. If you want to look that deeply at all. There’s more to compatibility than your star chart.”</p><p>	“Good Lord.”</p><p>	Ron laughed goodnaturedly right in his face, which, if Harry was going to be completely candid about, came off as a bit rude. “Good luck, Harry. You’re gonna need it.”</p><p>	Harry lifted his head out of his hands to see that a queue had formed in front of their work station. It seemed that nearly every girl and boy in the class was waiting for their chance to corner the chosen one. This was going to be a long month. </p><p>	“Please, please form a single file queue for me,” Ron greeted the group jovially. “There is more than enough Harry Potter to go around. And if he doesn’t do it for you, you can always fall back on the tall, lanky and dependable, Ron Weasley.” He threw a sideways wink and a small smirk in Harry’s direction as he gestured to his newly filled out and quite statuesque physique. Harry could have killed him and, looking around at the irritated faces on the remainder of the class not gagging for some Potter and Weasley action, he would’ve had some back up. One pointed and pale face in particular was glaring at Ron with open derision. Harry made a split second decision. </p><p>	“You can start with the queue, Ron. I’m going to go rule out Malfoy.”</p><p>	The crowd giggled as he made his way to the back of the class where Draco Malfoy and four other Slytherins had remained planted in their usual seats. Ron merely rolled his eyes and snorted as he walked away. Harry was still so oblivious to his own obsession with the blond git. It was getting so ridiculous that Ron had no choice but to laugh at him. </p><p>	“Er, hello,” Harry greeted the group of Slytherins awkwardly. This had seemed like a much better idea when he was escaping the throng and hadn’t entered the snake pit yet. The welcome in this corner of the classroom was frosty at best. As the sleeping Professor Trelawney would say, their auras were ominous. </p><p>	If it had been any other year, Malfoy would have had his wand drawn and pointed aggressively at Harry’s neck by now. As it was, the blond looked too bloody knackered to be arsed to do anything about the golden boy’s presence in his precious social bubble. He didn’t signal Crabbe or Goyle to respond to Harry either. He looked indifferent which, for some unearthly reason, pissed Harry off to no end. </p><p>	“Would you like to compare charts with me?” A petite dark skinned girl with long pink box braids and arresting onyx eyes offered him a tentative response. Harry couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought her name was Tracey or Tricia. Lisa was also a possibility. Harry really wished that he was better with names. There were even two Gryffindor girls in his year that he could hardly place. Eloise and Sally? Sally-Anne and Tricia? He was hopeless. The girl continued regardless, undeterred by his inner guessing game, “I’m a Libra with an Aries ascendent.”</p><p>       "Tracey, honestly I," Pansy started sputtering at the same time as Harry began speaking over her. </p><p>	Harry breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, yes, that’s great actually. Ron said I should be looking for an Aries ascendent to complement my Leo ascendent.”</p><p>	“Tell me, Potter,” Malfoy sneered halfheartedly, “does the Weasel always have to tell you rudimentary things that we have known all our lives?”</p><p>	“Stuff it, Malfoy. Why don’t you compare your chart with Crabbe and Goyle since they’re the only ones who can fucking stand you.”</p><p>	Pansy and Tracey gasped in unison at his language. Crabbe, true to his reputation as the dumber of the two henchman, actually responded to his rhetorical jibe, “Draco and us would never work out. Greg and I are Cancers. He’s a Gemini. ”</p><p>	Harry flushed. It was one thing to feel out of his depth around Ron and quite another to know less about any given subject than Vincent Crabbe. This unit was officially the worst in Harry’s estimation. He must of looked sufficiently stunned because Tracey jumped in again to save him.</p><p>	“That’s why Draco is so mouthy,” She joked, earning herself nothing more than a pair of cold grey eyes rolling in her direction. Harry found it interesting that this Tracey girl could get away with bad mouthing Malfoy like that. Her voice lowered and she leaned towards Harry conspiratorially, “Geminis are notoriously talkative! And the men have a bit of a reputation for causing trouble, too.” </p><p>	“Hush up, Tracey. You know nothing of his reputation,” Pansy shrieked at an ungodly high pitch. </p><p>	“I know that he is on my list of potential matches and not on yours, you stupid Scorpio bint,” Tracey shot back at her. </p><p>	That insult triggered some information that had previously been buried under other actually interesting and pertinent stuff in Harry’s mind. </p><p>	“You’re a Scorpio?” Harry asked Pansy excitedly, pleased that he could finally contribute meaningfully to this conversation. She nodded at him. “That’s a water sign!” </p><p>	“Uh huh,” Pansy’s small features were screwed even further as she tried to follow the plot of his paltry yet true statement. </p><p>	“Ron is a Pisces! He’s looking for other water signs. You should go compare charts with him.” </p><p>	“Ew!” Pansy’s voice rose to those unseemly heights once again. “As if, Potter. It’s bad enough that Greg and Vincent are on my list.”</p><p>	Crabbe, Goyle and Harry all made identical expressions of outrage. Though Harry’s was for Ron’s honor and Crabbe and Goyle’s were for themselves. On second thought, Crabbe and Goyle had joined their meaty hands at that remark so it was entirely possible those two were appalled for each other. This was really shaping up to be quite the illuminating day for Harry.   </p><p>	“You could do a hell of a lot worse than Ron,” Harry snapped at her. </p><p>	“And you wouldn’t be able to do much better than Greg or Vincent,” Malfoy muttered softly at a volume that was obviously meant for only his two bodyguards to hear. Harry heard it anyway, but Pansy and Tracey were too busy whispering to one another about whether she should approach Ron to pay Malfoy any mind. </p><p>	Harry, meanwhile, turned his attention over to Malfoy in full, smiling a bit when he noticed the other boy shifting uncomfortably and averting his gaze.  “So, you have Tracey on your list as well?”</p><p>	“Yes, Potter. Gemini and Libra are both air signs. That means they form a trine,” He spoke very slowly and enunciated each of the syllables like Harry was a toddler or as if he was an incredibly rude tourist speaking their first language at a troll’s pace to people that were casually multilingual. Harry wanted desperately to punch that smirk off his awfully thin and chapped lips. “A trine is an auspicious aspect for harmony.”</p><p>	“Let me see your chart, Malfoy.”</p><p>	Draco’s eyes widened comically. “Excuse me?”</p><p>	“Let….me…..see….your….chart,” Harry said again, slower this time in a perfect imitation of Draco’s own appalling manners. “If you’re a good match for Tracey then you’re probably a good match for me as well.”</p><p>	“No!” He exclaimed, proprietarily placing both of his very clothed and cuffed off forearms over his parchment. </p><p>	Harry drew his wand surreptitiously and cast a jinx on him to glue his hands together before anyone even knew what was happening. In the ensuing chaos of Draco screeching at Crabbe and Goyle to do something, Pansy stroking his hair and whispering sweet nothings in his ear unhelpfully, and Tracey giggling behind a clenched fist, Harry snatched the chart right out from under him and made his way back over to Ron. </p><p>	“Ron,” Harry shoved himself against his friends back to get his attention from Lavender and a couple of the other stragglers that remained around him. “I stole Malfoy’s chart.”</p><p>	That ripped Ron’s attention away from Lavender pretty effectively. “You what?” </p><p>	“I think it might be able to tell us what he's been up to.”</p><p>	Ron looked beseechingly to the sky. “Merlin help me.”</p>
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